Utrecht’s international treaty

An ancient European university teaching in English is leading the push for internationalisation – and rankings, writes Christina Slade. As autumn cools into winter, the streams of students cycling to and from classes are increasingly bundled in layers of clothing, although never a helmet. Most seem able to ride while speaking on a mobile and holding an umbrella. They move around the cobbled streets of the ancient inner city taking classes in gilt rooms, coffee in coffee houses, meals on the edge of canals, browsing book stores and, strikingly, speaking English. I am talking of Utrecht, a university with which I have had an association for five years. Over that time, it has opened up to international recruitment, teaching not just graduates but also undergraduates in English, encouraging academics to publish in English in highly ranked journals, and setting performance targets more familiar from the Anglo-Saxon world. The ancient universities of continental Europe are internationalising. The University of Utrecht, founded in 1636, is one of the leaders of the trend. They seek higher rankings in listings such as the Times Higher Education and Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings. In 2008, Utrecht rated as the best university in the Netherlands, ninth best in Europe and 47 in the world in the Jiao Tong. Rankings are historical and depend on what factors are weighted: the Shanghai ranking depends inter alia on the number of Nobel Prize winners. Utrecht has a proud record of Nobel winners, such as the physicist Wilhelm Rontgen, in science. The THE ranking takes more account of the number of international students – on this scale, Utrecht is 70th worldwide in the listing announced this month for 2009, although it remains 47th in natural sciences. The university has three campuses – the Faculty of Arts is in the old inner city and spreads across beautifully renovated historic buildings. In one the Treaty of Utrecht, ending the war of the Spanish succession, was signed in 1713. There is the hospital and a modern campus set in what is called the Uithof, the outer town. A third campus, just outside the town centre, is home to University College Utrecht, the international undergraduate college. Here all teaching is in English, and students live on the campus, set in a former army barracks within the town, following a broad US-style undergraduate college preparation. Dutch students typically pay minimal fees and receive generous state living allowances. All students who finish high school are assured of a place. The University College is slightly different: there are academic and English language level requirements and fees for all students – around €10,000 ($16,000) for tuition and board for EU students and €17,000 ($28,000) for non-EU students. The University College is a major innovation, but English language tuition at undergraduate and graduate levels is increasingly common across the university. There are some 2000 international students and staff among the 30,000 students and 8500 members of staff. On 3 September, the Dutch Minister of Education Ronald Plasterk presented ‘Internationalisation monitor of education in the Netherlands 2008’ to Parliament. He noted that the percentage of international students in Dutch government-funded higher education increased slightly in 2008, to about 7.5 per cent. As in previous years Germany, China and Belgium are the three main countries of origin. Dutch students still prefer to go the UK and Belgium. In 2008, there were an estimated 76,000 international students from at least 59 different countries in the Netherlands. Of these, roughly 7000 students were on EU Erasmus scholarships, while 51,000 followed a complete study program, of which most were from the EU, where fees are set to domestic levels. The University of Utrecht is not alone in entering the market for full-fee paying students, in competition with Australian, US and UK universities – and that means teaching in English. For instance, the new research masters in the Faculty of Humanities are taught in English and explicitly aim to recruit internationally. Such developments are backed by substantial government funds, such as the $24 million fund for sustainable humanities available to all Dutch universities. The dean of humanities, Wiljan van Den Akker, has put forward an ambitious $8 million bid on behalf of Utrecht University. Rosi Braidotti, who begun her studies in philosophy at ANU in the 1970s, leads the new Centre for the Humanities, from an elegantly refitted golden era maison-de-maître abutting the cathedral cloisters, with a series of eminent visitors, such as the London School of Economics’ David Held, all speaking in English. Utrecht is a university where Descartes taught (although, in fact, he was let go), in an ancient city centre. It is highly reputable and research-active. In recent weeks, research successes have included the discovery that sea temperatures in the South Pole were tropical 50 million years ago, to that of the cause of restless genital syndrome in women. They will be tough competition. Christina Slade is dean of arts and social sciences at City University London.